An Open Heart (45 page)

By late afternoon, Gabby was bone-tired and stepping off the plane in the US.

After passing through passport control, she picked up her luggage and headed for customs.

A few minutes later, she passed through the doors marked “No return after exit.” She pulled out her cell phone to call Heather Rawlings. Two men in dark suits approached and addressed her. “Ms. Dawson?”

“Yes.”

“Officer Jackson,” the shorter man said, flashing a badge. “Virginia State Police. Is Dr. Jace Rawlings traveling with you?”

She shook her head. “No. He was unable to make the flight from Nairobi to Heathrow. He’s still in Kenya.”

The men looked at each other. Evidently, this was news.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Gabby walked off as the men flipped open their phones.

She waited until she was a few feet away to dial Heather.

“Hey,” she said. “It’s me.”

“Gabby!” Heather said. “I just got off the phone with Evan Martin. They’ve found Jace. He’s alive!”

The following afternoon, Evan sat at Jace’s bedside in the men’s ward at Tenwek hospital, feeling far from alone. The large room housed twenty-two beds, each with a patient in various states of ill health.

Jace was pale and appeared to be the center of a tangle of tubes giving or receiving fluids. A urinary catheter drained the output from his kidneys. A tube drained bloody fluid from his stomach, another blood from his chest .

Two IVs were Y’ed into one, joining to give Jace a mixture of electrolyte fluids, sugar, and antibiotics.

Evan studied the chart in his hand. “Your liver functions are improving.”

“How’s my hemoglobin?”

“Down one since yesterday. Drop any lower and you’re going to need another transfusion.”

Jace groaned. He didn’t want another transfusion. With HIV running at fifteen percent in the general population, he didn’t want blood, even if they claimed they screened every unit.

“What did they do to you, Jace?”

“Not sure. Seems like they scalded me inside and out.”

“I’d like to get you back to Kijabe. Dr. Thomas said I could take you once the chest tube is out.”

Jace nodded. “Say, Evan, help me sit up, would you?”

Once he was sitting on the side of the bed, Jace motioned for the other men in the room. “How many of you understand English?”

Six men responded in the affirmative.

He looked at Evan. “I think there are a few plastic chairs at the nurses’ station. Can you help gather these men around? I want to talk to them.”

Evan was surprised, but did as Jace had asked.

Once the chairs were gathered, two men sat on the chairs, two on Jace’s bed and three more stood against the wall between the beds.

“Men,” Jace began. “I want to tell you my story.

“I came to this country expecting to do good works, hoping I might win a few points with God. I’ve done some pretty bad stuff in my life, and I knew I was long overdue for some changes. What I found is that the cross has taken care of my sin, and that my works can’t add one little bit to what God has already done.”

The men nodded.

“For a long time, I doubted that God wanted anything to do with me. But what I’ve found out in the last few weeks in Kenya has convinced me that God has been in my corner all along, loving me, forgiving me, and fighting a real war on my behalf.

“I’m here to tell you about encounters beyond the grave. My patients’, and my own.

“You can write me off as crazy, but what I’m going to tell you is absolutely true.” Jace smiled. “Strange, but true.” He pointed at the men. “I know now that God is alive and loves each one of you.”

Evan Martin looked at his friend. “Jace,” he said, his voice etched with concern, “you’ve been through a lot. You may not be thinking clearly.”

Jace shook his head and ignored his friend’s concern. “My story starts the day I arrived in Kenya and saw a goat that had been raised from the dead. It ends with an angel who told me I was chosen …”

49

Heather pulled the brush through the thick hair of the mastiff. “Good dog.”

She’d been working steadily for twenty minutes when the doorbell interrupted her attention.

She scratched the dog behind the ears. “Stay, Bo.”

She walked down the hall, through the kitchen, and out to the entrance foyer. She looked through the window.
Ryan Meadows.

She put her hand in the pocket of her shorts to check for her cell before opening the door. “Mr. Meadows.”

“May I come in?”

She shook her head. “What is your business?”

“I hear that your husband decided to change his plans and delay his return.”

She put her hands on her hips. “So?”

“How convenient,” he said. “Did you tip him off that the police would be waiting for him?”

“No,” she said, “I’ve not spoken to Jace. I hear he’s recovering from an assault. He should be home soon.” She paused. “I would hope the police would rethink the decision to arrest him.”

“Mrs. Rawlings, I’m sure Jace wants you to be convinced of his innocence. Perhaps you’d like to look at some other evidence that will help you see things more clearly.”

She stepped back. “Perhaps.”

He put his hand against the door behind her, pushing it open. “Shall I follow you?”

She sighed. “Sure.”

Inside, Ryan Meadows sat on the couch and opened his briefcase. “You’re going to want to look at this with me,” he said, patting the couch cushion next to him.

Irritated, she complied.

As she did, he shifted his open briefcase to hide its contents. His demeanor changed, darkening. “You just had to start snooping, didn’t you?” Before she could react, he pulled out a syringe and plunged it into Heather’s left thigh just below her shorts. She screamed and stumbled to her feet. “What are you doing?”

“Ketamine,” he said, smiling. “Nice to have a brother in the veterinarian business. You may want to sit before you fall. Don’t worry,” he said, loosening his belt. “You won’t feel a thing.”

She stumbled into the kitchen, leaving Ryan on the couch. She pulled out her cell and, turning her body so that he couldn’t see, punched 911. Feeling her head begin to swim, she placed the open phone behind the toaster before collapsing onto the floor.

“Bo,” she gasped. “Help! Bo!”

She heard footsteps and then saw Ryan leaning over her. He whispered, “When you wake up, you can call Jace for help, just like Anita did.” He laughed. “Except you’re not going to wake up.”

The last thing she felt was Ryan ripping open her blouse. “Too bad you won’t be around to see your husband go to jail.”

The 911 operator frowned. She usually received a dozen mistake calls a day, many of them from elderly patients who dialed emergency services by accident. But this was different. The line was still alive. There were sounds, but they were faint.

She listened as a woman called for help. A man’s voice was next, too quiet for her to hear.

Unfortunately, the location wasn’t easy to trace. She heard a dog barking, then a man screaming, “Hey, get off me! Ow!”

The line was still open when a second call came in. She left the first line alive and answered the second call. “911. Can you state the nature of your emergency?”

A man’s voice. “I’ve been attacked by a dog. He won’t let me get up. I’m bleeding.”

“Can you give me your location?”

“124 Dogwood Lane.”

“Help is on the way.”

Six minutes later, Nathan Gilson and Ginny Tannous knocked on the door at 124 Dogwood Lane. Hearing a weak, “Come in,” they entered.

A man was leaning against a kitchen island, holding his right hand over his left forearm. A large dog lay at his feet.

“Careful,” the man said. “The dog is protecting the woman.”

They looked to the man’s left. A woman lay sprawled on the floor, eyes open, snoring. Her blouse was ripped open.

The man looked desperate. “She collapsed, fainted or something. I went to help and thought she didn’t have a pulse. I ripped open her shirt to start CPR when the dog attacked. He won’t let me touch her.”

Ginny approached the dog, holding out her hand and handing him a doggy treat she kept on hand for unruly dogs they encountered on the job. “Good boy,” she said calmly. “Good dog.”

“I’m okay,” the man said. “Please attend to her.”

“How’s your arm?”

“Bleeding, but I think it will be okay. I called because he wouldn’t let me up.”

The dog stood and emitted a deep growl.

Ginny tugged on his collar. “Easy, boy.”

“What’s her name?” Nathan asked.

“Heather Rawlings,” the man said.

“Is she diabetic? Does she have a known seizure disorder?”

“Not that I know of. She came out to the kitchen to prepare drinks. The next thing I heard was a thud. I came out to find her right here.”

The duo turned their attention to the woman. Nathan knelt over her assessing her airway, breathing, and pulse. He noted a small drop of blood on her thigh.

Ginny tilted her head. “Do you hear that?”

“What?”

“Someone is talking. Like a radio,” she said, standing, “or a phone.” She leaned over the island counter, listening. There, behind the toaster, she saw a small cell phone, the source of the voice.

She lifted it to hear, “Hello! Hello!”

Ginny said, “Hello?”

“This is the 911 operator. Is there an emergency there?”

“This is EMS. We are on scene.”

“How did you know where to go? I’ve been monitoring this call, but haven’t had communication to know where to send a crew.”

“Wait a minute,” Ginny said. “You directed us here, said a man had been attacked by a dog.”

“That wasn’t
this
call,” she said. “That was a second call. This call was a woman screaming for help. Then I heard a man and a dog. Then the second call came in.”

“Well, don’t worry,” Ginny said. “We’re here now. The man came to help her.”

“Okay, carry on.”

Ginny closed the phone. “Where is that guy?”

Nathan looked around. “Sir?” He walked into the front room, returning a moment later. He shrugged. “He’s gone.” He looked at their patient on the floor. “Let’s move her. I’ll bet she’s a druggie. Just look at those eyes.”

50

Two days and two international flights later, Ryan Meadows stepped out into the Nairobi sunshine, grateful that he’d cultivated a contact who owed him a favor. He checked into the Stanley Hotel downtown and dialed a number on the phone in his room.

“Minister Okombo, it’s Ryan Meadows.”

“Mr. Meadows. I didn’t expect to hear from you. Are you calling for an update on our business arrangement?”

“Not exactly. I’m in town. Just arrived at Kenyatta an hour ago. I’m at the Stanley.”

“Did you see Dr. Rawlings? He is flying out. You must have passed him in the airport.”

Ryan huffed. “He’s alive?”

“Yes.”

“We had a deal.”

“The doctor became useful to me. An ally, even.”

Ryan sighed. He couldn’t worry about that now. He listened as the African exhaled into the phone. “So what brings you to town?” Okombo asked.

“I need a little favor. Perhaps you know of a place I can rest for a while—someplace private. No one can know that I am here. I’m so tired of the media attention from my job. You understand.”